Three new large dinosaurs discovered in Australia

Fossils of three new species of dinosaurs have been discovered in Australia, including a meat-eater larger than Velociraptor from the Jurassic Park movies, suggesting Australia may have a more complex prehistoric past.

The two plant-eating and one carnivore dinosaurs, the first large dinosaurs unearthed since 1981, were found in Queensland and date back 98 million years to the mid-Cretaceous period.

"It not only presents us with two new amazing long-necked giants of the ancient Australian continent, but also announces our first really big predator," according to palaeontologist John Long, head of sciences at Museum Victoria.

Palaeontologist Ben Kear at La Trobe University in Melbourne said the discovery will pave the way for new studies on Australian dinosaurs and their environments.

"Australia is one of the great untapped resources in our current understanding of life from the Age of Dinosaurs," Dr Kear said. "The discoveries... will definitely reinvigorate interest in the hitherto tantalisingly incomplete, but globally significant record from this continent..."

Australia's dinosaur fossil record has been extremely poor compared with North America, South America and Africa.

The new dinosaurs were unearthed during joint Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum and Queensland Museum digs at Winton in outback Queensland.

The meat-eating theropod dinosaur has been called Australovenator (nicknamed Banjo after Australian bush poet Banjo Patterson) and the two plant-eating sauropod dinosaurs are Wintonotitan and Diamantinasaurus

"The cheetah of his time, Banjo was light and agile. He could run down most prey with ease over open ground," said Scott Hocknull, lead author of the dinosaur discovery, published on PLos One (www.plosone.org/home.action).